The m.o. behind the writing on Adventure Time pretty much has the guys working together in the writers’ room coming up with outlines through both words and pictures. Crazy, right? My point is the process has been very collaborative, and ideas are always accompanied with visuals. Above is a page of story notes for “You’re a Beautiful Dancer”, which we may or may not see go beyond this stage. It’s the work of Adam Muto. Click on the image to go to Flickr for much, much larger versions.

You’re going to notice a few differences between “Adventure Time”, the Nickelodeon short, and Adventure Time, the Cartoon Network series, when the latter premieres late next year. One of those differences will be in the background style. Pen and the show’s creative director, Pat McHale, have asked art director Nick Jennings to come up with a couple of different takes based on a wide array of art and artists – from Arthur Rackham to George Herriman to Jeff Smith – that float their boats. Nick’s been busy churning out a variety of looks. While things are far from set in stone, here are two early samples which folks seem to like real well. What do you think?